“Good evening, Mr. Kelly.”

“Hey, Jerry,” I say. “Here to pick Emma up.”

He nods and smiles. “She's a driven lady.”

“You don't know the half of it,” I say with a rueful laugh.

He buzzes me in through the front reception area, and I pull the door open, stepping onto the newsroom floor. We put the new security doors and safety protocols in place, partly because of the threat to Emma, but mostly, because of the threat to journalists everywhere. We live in dangerously uncertain times, and all too frequently, the media has been used as a convenient punching bag. And, after what happened in Maryland not all that long ago, Ava and I decided that we couldn't be too careful.

The newsroom is eerily quiet and dark, everybody having already left long ago. The lights in Emma's office are on, so I head in that direction. When I get to her door, however, I find the office empty. Figuring she's probably in the bathroom, I step inside and drop down into her seat to wait.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and call up the ESPN app, checking on the day's scores and news. Even though I'm removing myself from the sports world, I still enjoy sports. But, after scrolling through the headlines, and checking my email twice, I glance at my smartwatch. I've been sitting here for five minutes, and there's still no sign of Emma. I look down and see her bag on the ground under her desk, so I know she hasn't gone anywhere.

Her paranoia must be rubbing off on me, because I'm starting to get concerned. She's been in the bathroom an awfully long time. But then, I know she's also had a pretty dodgy stomach lately. There are some days she can't keep her food down at all. The stress of having Carlyle Hawkins know who she is must be getting to her. I've tried to talk her into walking away from the story. It's out there, and hopefully, the police will pick it up, and do their job.

No matter how many times I try to persuade her to leave it, she refuses every time. She's tenacious and won't walk away from it. Emma is adamant that she’s going to finish what she started, and that Hawkins will go to prison for the rest of his life for what he's done.

And, if there's one thing I've learned about Emma, it's that she’s true to her word. She doesn't make idle, empty threats. I almost feel sorry for Hawkins, because he doesn't know the can of worms he opened all over himself. At least, not yet. I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon enough.

I check the time again and after seeing that another five minutes has passed, I get out of the chair, and head down the hallway to the bathrooms. I get to the women's room and knock on the door.

“Em, you in there?”

Silence.

“Em,” I say, knocking again. “You in there?”

I wait another few moments as dread rises up within me like a malignant tide. I pull the door open and step inside to find the room empty. All the stall doors are open, and Emma is nowhere to be seen.

Something at my feet catches my eyes, and when I look at it, I see that it's a handkerchief neatly folded into a square. I don't know why I bothered with it, but I picked it up, and was immediately assaulted by the acrid scent of the chemical on the rag. My mind instantly flashes to movies and TV shows I've seen, and I automatically assume the handkerchief has been coated in chloroform.

My pulse racing, and my heart tripping all over itself, I look around the room for anything else, and notice Emma's cell phone behind the trash can. I move quickly and pick it up. The screen is spiderwebbed with cracks. It's obviously been dropped.

As I look at the two things I'm holding – a rag soaked with what I suspect is chloroform, and Emma's now-broken cell phone – I feel the hard flutter of panic inside of me. Something happened here. Something bad.

Rushing out of the bathroom and back down to Emma's office, I grab my cell phone and dial Ava. She answers on the first ring.

“Ava Drake.”

“It's Brice,” I say. “Get down to the paper right now.”

“What's going –”

“Now, Ava,” I growl. “Get down here now.”

I stab the button to disconnect the call and drop my phone on the desk. I sit down in the seat and look at Emma's bag again. There is no way in hell she would have gone anywhere without her bag or her phone. At least, not willingly.

Which only means that Carlyle has gotten to her.

Fuck.

I pick up Emma's office phone, and punch in the number to connect me with Jerry at the front desk, and he answers before the first ring is even complete.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Kelly?”

“Count your men,” I say. “Figure out who is missing, and then figure out how Hawkins got into this fucking building, grabbed Emma, and got back out without being seen.”

“Ms. Simmonds is gone?” he asks, sounding stunned.

“Now, Jerry!” I bark. “Find out now.”

I slam the phone down and stare at Emma's cell phone. Fear is twisting my gut into knots, and I want to punch something. I open Emma's cell phone and look at her recent calls list. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ditto that with her voicemails. Next, I check her social media, and find nothing interesting.

Finally, I call up her text messages, and strike gold.

I see a text string from right around the time I called her to tell her I was coming early. Reading the messages, it seems clear to me that it was Hawkins. Why had she defied him so blatantly? Why had she provoked him like that?

And more importantly, what in the hell happened after that? Where was she now?

About fifteen minutes later, Ava steps into the office, and looks at me with an inscrutable expression on her face.

“What's going on, Brice?”

“Hawkins has her,” I growl. “He's got Emma.”

She recoils like I just slapped her, and stares at me in open disbelief. I show her what I found, having her read the text message exchange, and then hand her the rag. She grimaces when she smells the chemicals on it, but her eyes grow wide, as the implication is perfectly clear.

“Jesus, Brice,” she says. “What are we going to do?”

I shake my head. “I don't know,” I say. “I have Jerry checking to see how Hawkins got in here.”

“Shit,” Ava says, as she paces the room, her arms crossed over her chest protectively. “Shit, shit, shit. I never should have left her alone. I should have demanded that she knock off when I did.”

“You couldn't have made her do anything she didn't want to do,” I say. “This isn't your fault, Ava.”

Jerry steps into the office, his face flushed, an expression of worry on his face.

“What did you find?” I ask.

“Came in through the back doors,” he says, his voice grim. “Tommy never saw him coming, but the attacker knocked him out and stole his keycard. Then, he gained access to the building through the rear doors. Which is how he got Ms. Simmonds out unseen. Couldn't have happened all that long ago though. Tommy checked in on his rounds about five minutes before you got here, Mr. Kelly.”

Great. Knowing I just missed him pisses me off. Knowing I sat in this goddamn office for ten minutes while they were getting away, enrages me. I should have gone to check on her sooner. I should have gotten here faster. If I hadn't stopped to have a drink with Pete...

There are a million what-if's here, and I realize there is no way I could have seen this happening. No way I could have foreseen this. All I can do right now, is deal with the situation at hand, as it is.

“Is Tommy okay?” I ask.

Jerry nods. “Should be. He's a tough old bastard,” he says. “Alan's taking him down to the hospital now.”

“We need to call the police,” Ava says.

I scoff. “Yeah, I'm sure they'll be dying to help her out after she's been trashing them lately,” I say. “They've made their position on Emma very clear – not her biggest fans.”

“It's their job,” Jerry offers.

“So was finding this fucking lunatic before any of this happened,” I snap. “Right now, I need to know how we find her.”

Jerry nods. “Okay, do we know if she's got the panic switch on her?”

“I told her to keep it on her at all times,” Ava says.

“Yeah, because Emma's great at taking orders,” I groan. “Besides, what good will it do? She's already been taken. It's not like we need her to trigger that alarm. That ship has already sailed.”

“Each unit comes equipped with a location tracker, just in case a problem ever arose where a client couldn't push the button,” Jerry says. “For situations just like this.”

A surge of hope flares within me as the three of us start searching her desk, her bag, and the rest of her office for the panic switch. It's small and looks like the remote for a car alarm. It's discreet and may not draw a lot of attention – exactly what it was designed for.

“I don't see it,” Ava says.

“Neither do I,” I say.

“Okay,” Jerry says. “Let's hope she hasn't dropped it anywhere and still has it on her then.”

He sits down behind the computer at her desk as Ava, and I crowd behind him. He pulls up a website and logs in. I tap my foot impatiently – this is taking forever. I'm keenly aware of the passage of time – in a way I've never been before. Each tick of the clock represents one less second Emma has to live if we can't find her.

Finally, a grid map comes up on the screen. Jerry types in a few commands, and all of us lean forward. The air in the room is crisp with tension. With anticipation. With fear.

“Any second now,” Jerry says, though it sounds more like a hopeful statement than one of confidence.

The clock marches forward as we wait, and it's like I can feel Emma's life getting shorter and shorter. I've never felt as sick or as scared as I do right now.

Tick... tick... tick...

A blue dot suddenly appears on the screen, and Jerry claps his hands. Ava straightens up and looks at me, a look of relief on her face. I don't know why they're so excited – it's a blue fucking dot on a computer screen. It's not like we have her back unharmed.

“That blue dot is Ms. Simmonds,” Jerry says. “They're on the move.”

I look at the map and the direction they're headed.

“Looks like they're headed toward the marina,” Jerry says.

“I read somewhere that Hawkins has a place on Catalina,” Ava says. “A house on a hill kind of thing. Isolated.”

“A perfect murder spot,” I say. “And the channel out there might be the perfect place to dispose of a body.”

She nods. “We really need to call the police, Brice,” she says. “They need to handle this.”

I'm moving before the last words even come out of her mouth. “No time. And I don't trust them anyway. Jerry, send that map to my phone. I want to be able to track them.”

“You got it.”

Ava catches up with me before I get to the front doors. She puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me around to face her.

“This is crazy, Brice,” she says. “That man is a brutal murderer.”

“He kills young girls, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not that,” I say, the rage starting to smolder within me. “And he has Emma.”

“But, the police –”

“Are incompetent at best,” I say. “Complicit at worst. I'm not putting Emma's life in the hands of anyone I can't trust.”

She gives me a firm look and a tight smile. “Be careful,” she says. “Whether you're a young girl or not, he's dangerous. He's a predator. And he's been killing a long time. That gives him an advantage over you.”

A lopsided grin tugs one corner of my mouth up. “Careful. Your humanity is showing,” I say. “You actually sound like you care.”

She rolls her eyes, letting out a nervous sounding laugh. “What is with you and Emma, and this caring crap?” she says. “Simply looking out for my investment. That's all.”

I grab hold of her forearm and give it a gentle squeeze. Ava is as tough as they come, but deep inside, she's got a heart of marshmallow for those she cares about. Though she'll never admit it, it’s plain as day.

“Bring our girl home,” she says softly.

“Count on it.”